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Bica

Terminals

A terminal is a shell in a workspace, for commands and long-running processes such as dev servers. You and the agent share it: you can watch and stop a dev server the agent started, and the agent can read the output of one you started.

One shell for both of you

Section titled “One shell for both of you”

The shell runs on your dev machine. You type into it from any browser tab, and the agent types into it with its terminal tools.

You, in any tab(laptop, phone)Shell in the workspacebun run devAgent keys, outputterminal tools

Either of you can press Ctrl-C on what the other started and run something else. Several tabs can show the same terminal, and one that opens late still sees the output so far.

Open a terminal

Section titled “Open a terminal”
  • Press ⌃` (Control and backtick) for a new terminal in the workspace you’re in, or pick New terminal here in a workspace’s menu in the sidebar.
  • The sidebar lists terminals above the workspace’s sessions, with Running or the exit code.
  • A terminal opens full size in the centre. On a phone, a key bar adds Esc, Tab, ^C, and the arrow keys.
  • Its menu in the sidebar has Stop, Restart, and Close. Restart opens a fresh shell and runs its first command again, and Close ends the shell and whatever it runs.

It’s your normal login shell. When the command exits, the terminal keeps its output and exit code until you close it.

Terminals the agent starts

Section titled “Terminals the agent starts”

The agent uses terminals for dev servers, builds, and test runs, instead of running them in the background where you can’t see them. It can wait for a command to finish or for a line such as a server’s ready message, and it hears when a command it started ends, so a crashed dev server doesn’t go unnoticed. The agent’s tools lists them.

A terminal the agent starts belongs to its session. A strip under its top bar names that session, and Detach there makes the terminal yours: the agent can no longer type into it unless you tell it to. Archiving the session asks which of its terminals to close.

Restarting Bica ends every shell

Section titled “Restarting Bica ends every shell”

Shells run inside Bica, so quitting or restarting bica ends them all, along with whatever they ran. Sessions survive a restart, but terminals don’t.

Next

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